2017’s Best & Worst States for Women

Feb 27, 2017 | Richie Bernardo, Senior Writer

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In 2017, women in some parts of America still get the short end of the stick — even as they outnumber men in all but six states. For instance, women represent nearly two-thirds of all minimum-wage workers in the U.S. They also constituted the majority of poor, uninsured adults in the 19 states that had not expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act as of September 2016.

In order to determine how women are faring — and where they can find the best opportunities — relative to where they live, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 19 key indicators of living standards for women. Our data set ranges from “median earnings for female workers” to “women’s preventive health care” to “female homicide rate.” Read on for our findings, expert insight from a panel of researchers and a full description of our methodology.

Robyn Muncy

Interim Chair of Women's Studies and Professor of History at University of Maryland

What are the biggest financial issues facing women today?

The financial issues that women face today range from low pay (women working full time make about 79 cents for every dollar that men make) to inadequate provision for retirement. Because women make less money than men and are often out of the labor market to care for children or other family members at some point in their adult lives, they often cannot save adequately for retirement or pay for health insurance or advanced education. Indeed, because they are as a group paid less than men, the causes and institutions that they believe in cannot hope for the same financial support as those in which men especially believe. These financial inequities sustain women's subordination to men in American life.

What should a state level public policy agenda for women include?

At the current moment, a state level public policy agenda for women should include, among other items:

Raising the minimum wage (because women are more likely to be employed in minimum wage jobs than men);

Protecting the right of workers to organize unions in the public and private sectors (because women workers can improve their standards of living, pay equity, and the safety of their jobs through collective bargaining as well as empower themselves and their communities politically through unionization); this means, among other things, overturning right to work laws in the states that now have them and preventing their passage elsewhere;

Ensuring paid sick days and paid family leave to all workers;

Protecting reproductive rights and access to health care (through, for instance, expansion of Medicaid and the promotion of as robust a health insurance marketplace as possible);

State provision of financial aid for immigrants, documented and undocumented, who are qualified as students for state universities (because many women immigrants otherwise lack the financial resources to pursue higher education);

The expansion of voting rights (because women are so prominent among the poor, young, and people of color who are excluded from the franchise by recent voter ID laws, decreased days and times for voting, and limited places for voting);

Effective means of educating the public against sexual assault and effective means of prosecuting sexual assault cases;

Prohibition of gun sales to domestic abusers.

Are states converging or diverging in issues of importance to women including equal pay, reproductive rights, etc.?

It does seem that states are diverging on issues of importance to women. Still, many states are doing everything they can to limit women's access to abortion, to make guns as widely available as possible, to limit access to health care by refusing Medicaid expansions offered through ACA, for instance, by refusing to raise the minimum wage and by passing right to work laws as well as restrictions on voting. These states would, in my view, be less great places for women to live that states that promote the opposite policies.

What strategies have proven effective in encouraging more women to run for elected office?

The people who would know most about how to encourage women to run for office are the folks at Emily's list. They are very clear that women need to be asked to run for office and then convinced that they have the qualifications. Women are less likely than men to think they have the appropriate skills, experience, or personal qualities to run. Explicit outreach to women, training them, and providing financial assistance, are, as I understand it, important aspects of getting more women on the ballot.

Caroline B. Brettell

University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Ruth Collins Altshuler Director in the Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute at the Southern Methodist University

What are the biggest financial issues facing women today?

A living wage and affordable health care for herself and her family, particularly if we are talking about women who are heading their own households. The challenges of paying for education for children, and also affordable housing in decent and safe neighborhoods.

What factors, financial or otherwise, should women consider when choosing a city to live in?

Are there safe and affordable neighborhoods to live in; what is the quality of the schools and where are the best schools, and can I afford to live where those schools are. Probably, for some women, access to public transportation.

Your question implies that women have this choice, which often they do not. It seems as if you are asking questions for professional women looking for high incomes rather than all women. Another bias (perhaps masculinist) in your questions is that women make decisions in a vacuum, which they do not. Sometimes they follow spouses and most of the time they consider their children before themselves.

Are states converging or diverging in issues of importance to women including equal pay, reproductive rights, etc.?

No they are not. In fact many states, including Texas, are reverting to policies that are decidedly unfriendly to women as well as patriarchal. They are pulling back on support of reproductive rights; they don’t care about equal pay; and they are enmired in patriarchal laws about who can and cannot enter bathrooms. They are passing laws, as in Texas, that are intrusive and manipulative -- such as the sonogram law in Texas. For those of us who were on the front lines in the 1960s this is all quite astonishing. It is regressive not progressive.

What strategies have proven effective in encouraging more women to run for elected office?

Organizations such as Emily’s List. Support in running for local offices first to build up a resume. Organizations such as the Latino Center for Leadership Development (supports Latino men and women to run for office). Similarly, Leadership Dallas in my community. Anything that gets people out to network and helps them to develop a platform. I guess I might add crowd sourcing strategies as well.

Rebecca Glauber

Associate Professor of Sociology at University of New Hampshire

What are the biggest financial issues facing women today?

In many respects, the biggest financial issues that women face today are the same that many men face: economic insecurity, job instability, a lack of savings and a fair amount of debt, huge healthcare costs, no retirement savings, and no paid family leave.

What factors, financial or otherwise, should women consider when choosing a city to live in?

I would think about paid parental leave. Right now, there is no federal policy that provides for this, but some cities have enacted more generous policies. In California, workers can receive 55 percent of their pay for six weeks following the birth or adoption of a child. San Francisco passed even more generous legislation. In San Francisco, new parents can receive 100 percent of their pay for six weeks. There are some stipulations on this (particularly with respect to the size of the employer), but in general, it’s helpful to many.

I would also look at how much the state government provides its public institutions of higher education as well as the tuition and fees of the higher education institutions, and finally, I would consider the city’s minimum wage. In particular, I’d look at how
much money it takes to actually live in that city and compare it to the city’s minimum wage.

What should a state level public policy agenda for women include?

Many things! Including, but not limited to: paid parental leave and a living wage, access to affordable health care and reproductive health care.

Hava Rachel Gordon

Associate Professor and Academic Advisor in the Department of Sociology & Criminology and Director of the Gender & Women's Studies Program at University of Denver

What are the biggest financial issues facing women today?

More women than men are represented among the poor in today's society: roughly 1/3 of women are clustered in low paying jobs with low job security, fewer work hours, and little-to-no benefits. For women in professional jobs that require advanced degrees and training, more women than men are facing a pull between the high cost of daycare and remaining in professional jobs not flexible enough to accommodate workers with children and care giving responsibilities (many of these high-powered careers require longer work hours than they did a decade ago).

The inflexibility of jobs to accommodate more women workers, combined with the absence of federal or state laws, which would make balancing career and family more workable, means that we are seeing many women "opt out" of higher-paying careers. By some estimates, these professional women lose nearly 1 million dollars in earnings, benefits and retirement funds over the course of their lifetime when they opt out. Although often framed as a choice, many women report opting out of the workforce as a last resort (see Pamela Stone's research).

Given pay inequities between men and women, and men's higher earnings on average, women and men who might hold gender egalitarian views on work/family responsibilities may still fall into traditional patterns of labor and childcare (e.g., women at home with kids, men as breadwinners) when faced with a job market that leaves no room for family care work. Of course, all the financial issues facing women also impact men (and families in general), though they do so in gendered and unequal ways.

What should a state level public policy agenda for women include?

Job security for low-wage jobs, and a raising in the minimum wage to a living wage. Since poverty and low-wage work is also a women's issue, then public policy that aims to improve this labor sector will also improve women's financial security. State-level public policy should also include affordable daycare and housing. Affordable, high-quality daycare would go a long ways in improving women's and families' financial security for all kinds of working women.

More working-class, low-income women are rejecting marriage as a way of gaining financial security (since marrying a man who might also be struggling with unemployment or underemployment will not translate into financial security for low-income women). State policy should recognize that 70% of women in the workforce are mothers, and many of these women are the major/only breadwinners for their families (especially near the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder). Finally, state public policy could provide incentives for employers to institute more flexible work hours, flex time, and/or childcare (or could offer incentives to companies who innovate these things for their employees).

Cynthia Bogard

Chair and Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology Program at Hofstra University

What are the biggest financial issues facing women today?

Lack of pay equity is perhaps the largest challenge -- women still are not paid the same as men doing the same job in some fields. Also of extreme importance is gender segregation within occupational sectors. Women are the majority of college graduates these days but we are still not graduating in equal numbers in the highest paid fields. More women need solid backgrounds in math and science at the high school level so that they can pursue any field when they do get to college.

In an entirely different context, there are many women, especially less educated single mothers, who have ongoing problems making enough to make ends meet for their families. Often, these women didn’t have an opportunity to complete their education and are dependent on part-time, low-paid jobs with no benefits and no protection. If these mostly part-time jobs have no benefits -- which is often the case, women can find themselves fired merely for missing a day’s work to take care of a sick child.

What factors, financial or otherwise, should women consider when choosing a city to live in?

The childcare situation is one important factor for young mothers. For other women, job availability is paramount. For all women, a safe city is imperative.

What should a state level public policy agenda for women include?

If states are interested in gender equity, support for women’s health and family planning services is hugely important. If women don’t have adequate health care, including reproductive services, all their other aspirations are compromised. Equitable education is also crucial, so that all people sort themselves into careers appropriate for their talents, not some old-fashioned notion of what is appropriate for their gender. Of course, formal pay equity (such as the Lily Ledbetter Act) is also important -- more important, is enforcement of equal pay.

Childcare should be an essential item on every state’s agenda if they truly want to better women’s lives. And adequate services and law enforcement for domestic violence and sexual assault will enable women to thrive.

Are states converging or diverging in issues of importance to women including equal pay, reproductive rights, etc.?

Obviously, many “red states” have enacted laws that restrict a woman’s right to abortion and even -- by harassing Planned Parenthood -- restricted young and impoverished women’s access to reproductive and other health services, such as cancer screening. To the extent that states have restricted women’s autonomy in these ways, women’s opportunities have also been restricted.

What strategies have proven effective in encouraging more women to run for elected office?

Women need encouragement, training and a good staff, just like any male candidate. But crucially, women need financial support to run for office -- and often they are not as connected to financial resources as their male counterparts. I would add that women maybe need a boost in imagining themselves as successful candidates. I think this is changing as women better realize their potential.

Methodology

In order to identify the best and worst states for women, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across two key dimensions, namely “Women’s Economic & Social Well-Being” and “Women’s Health & Safety.”

We examined those dimensions using 19 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for women.

We then calculated the overall score for each state and the District based on its weighted average across all metrics and used the resulting scores to construct our final ranking.

Women’s Economic & Social Well-Being – Total Points: 60

Median Earnings for Female Workers: Full Weight (~5.45 Points)Note: This metric was adjusted for the cost of living.

Unemployment Rate for Women: Full Weight (~5.45 Points)

Share of Women Living in Poverty: Full Weight (~5.45 Points)

Unaffordability of Doctor’s Visit: Full Weight (~5.45 Points)Note: This metric measures the percentage of women who could not afford to see a doctor in the past year due to costs.

Share of Women Who Voted in the 2012 Presidential Election: Full Weight (~5.45 Points)Note: At the time of this analysis, 2012 was the year of the most recent available presidential-election voting data. This metric was calculated as follows: Number of Women Who Voted in 2012 Presidential Election / Total Female U.S. Citizen Population in State.

Women’s Health Care & Safety – Total Points: 40

Quality of Women’s Hospitals: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)Note: This metric is based on U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals for Gynecology ranking.

Female Uninsured Rate: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)Note: This metric accounts for all ages.

Share of Women with Good or Better Health: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)Note: This metric is based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System (CDC – BRFSS).

Women’s Preventive Health Care: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)Note: This metric measures the percentage of women who were up-to-date on cervical and breast-cancer screenings.

Female Homicide Rate: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)Note: This metric measures the number of females murdered by males (per 100,000 female residents) and accounts for all ages.

Prevalence of Rape Victimization Among Females: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)Note: This metric measures instances of rape. According to the U.S Bureau of Justice Statistics, 91 percent of rape victims are female and 9 percent are male.

Prevalence of Stalking Victimization Among Women: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)

Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Educational Statistics, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Violence Policy Center, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Council for Community and Economic Research, U.S. News & World Report, Measure of America and WalletHub research.

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Community Discussion

Finally someone is getting this information out there! This year's Women's Equality results seem much more realistic than last year. The better status of women in Minnesota is exactly the reason why I decided to move there after college. Utah shouldn't be ranked as high as it does though, the everyday experience of a Mormon women isn't the same as an average American women who expects to have the full options of an advanced democracy.

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@emirchel

May 30, 2017

I needed this article! Thank you! I am a widow and 57 and want to relocate up to the New England area but have been hesitant but not from what you report. It's scary but I need to find my retirement place and your article has all the pertinent information I have been looking for. Thanks! Eileen M.